5 ms·

The point of the article is not "how to do it", but rather to observe that this kind of thing, previously a (relatively) niche concern, has become important to

The point of the article is not "how to do it", but rather to observe that this kind of thing, previously a (relatively) niche concern, has become important to a general audience. The article even suggests that there's a business opportunity for fashion businesses to create tailored videoconferencing spaces, which is predicated on the notion that most people lack the time or inclination to set up their own bespoke setup (including lighting, cameras, audio, and so on). The takeaway is meant to be that videoconferencing has reached a point of cultural importance where it has become hard to take a public figure seriously if they have a poor setup, in much the same way that it would be hard to take a poorly-dressed person seriously. Much as people experiment with clothing as a means of signalling status and personality, one's videoconferencing setup becomes a new way of signalling these things. It's all fairly obvious, but it's still not something that I have spent much time thinking about, and a how-to guide would probably not prompt me to think about the social and cultural aspects nearly so much.

mssundaram 5y ago
Eloquent summary and analysis, thank you!
brutus1213 5y ago
I was an organizer for a major ACM conference last year, and I really struggled with my home video streaming setup. A lot of equipment was sold out last year. I followed the recommendation of some YouTubers and realized that this is not as simple as it seems. Despite realizing the importance of a live stream setup and investing in it, I'm pretty unhappy with the results. Thankfully we are out of the worst of the pandemic .. but I agree that a good home streaming setup will be important going forward. Edit: one thing I never figured out how to solve was removing glare on my glasses (either monitor glare or from key lights). Best investment was an external microphone and a few items mounted on the wall behind me (which used to be bare).
- thinkmassive 5y ago
  For the glasses glare I found a few things that help: - Turn down display brightness - Dark mode everywhere possible - Block direct sunlight (blinds/curtains or rotate desk) - Illuminate the rest of your face to reduce the contrast from glasses If you use a terminal for most things, including notes, one thing that helps a lot is to use a semi-transparent black background and position the terminal window over the meeting display.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >Block direct sunlight Yeah, I don't bother day to day but, if I'm recording video, I have a couple different pieces of fabric that I can use to control the light coming in the windows--which also have shades--depending upon how sunny it is outside.
- jonpurdy 5y ago
  I wonder if using a polarizing filter over your webcam would reduce the glare from your glasses. Polarizing sunglasses very effectively reduce glare on water, as well as car windshields.
  - buro9 5y ago
    Yes this works. I use a polarising filter on a DSLR for a web cam and it makes my lenses invisible to the viewer... No reflection whatsoever.
- HanShotFirst 5y ago
  For glasses glare you can use soft lights (large, non directional lights, like lamps with large shades or harder lights bounced off of a white wall) on each side of your face, much more to the left and right than normal - almost perpendicular to your nose, just slightly in front of your face. It's a nontraditional setup.
- Mrnimbus112 5y ago
  This cunt thinks the worst is over haha
- ska 5y ago
  For glasses glare a couple of things: First, a circular polarizing filter can help. Second "key lights" don't have to just be your monitor. You can dark mode the monitor you have in line with camera and leave it at low brightness, then bring in the primary lighting from the side (another monitor, or a cheap/home-made soft box would work - a diffuse desk lamp may serve well, or a strong harsher light bounced off a white wall ). You can't stop light reflecting off your glasses, but you can make sure most of it doesn't bounce into your camera. Not if you go very directional on the light you may need something to fill from the other side so you don't get strong shadows. One source should be ok if you only give enough angle to loose the reflection.
linsomniac 5y ago
Over a year ago now I had commented that it's funny watching the TV networks struggle to figure out what teenagers on TikTok had dialed in: Their streaming setups. I imagined that the broadcasters, when they had to switch to remote, had video and audio engineers you could put together a kit for their stars. But for a while it seemed like so many were "You have a laptop with a camera and mic Good to go!"
- fatboy93 5y ago
  My FIL does TV debates in India, and his setup is to skyoe/zoom/meet into their station. He's using an iPad mini to run all the apps tbh, and it works fine more or less.
bluefirebrand 5y ago
> in much the same way that it would be hard to take a poorly-dressed person seriously The sooner we can get over this obsession with people dressed "nicely" and instead listen to people who know what they are talking about, the better. Any monkey can wear a jacket and tie. I hate that society automatically elevates well dressed people the way it does. To me it only signals that they have money.
- jiofih 5y ago
  You may be surprised to realize that you’re the one being superficial here in equating style with money. Dressing well does not require money - what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing. Millions of people dress nicely from Primark/C&A alone, and even fashion students get going on tight budgets sourcing second hand items. Much like keeping your hair looking good, trimming your nose hair and so on, these signals will never be completely ignored unless social norms for personal care change significantly - and that’s not happening without a significant cultural / economic / health shift.
  - Mrnimbus112 5y ago
    Hey look another cunt who cares about the wrong things in life.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    > what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing. Caring about sophistication or good taste in fashion is a luxury that it takes money to afford. Even just the time investment it requires to be fashionable, to source nice clothes and plan outfits and all of that shit, it's absolutely the domain of people who have money. I don't think you've ever been poor. Poor enough that "second hand" doesn't mean thrift stores, it means "hand-me-downs".
    - robocat 5y ago
      You have moved the goalposts. > I don't think you've ever been poor. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions - there are many people on hn from other countries where having access to a thrift store defines you as relatively wealthy. Either way, if you look like a hobo on your livestream setup, then people are likely to judge you. I wish the world was less judgemental, but you don’t get to tell others how to be, so you have to live with how they act, and sometimes that means playing dress up. Sometimes it is a sign of respect for other people’s opinions - some people really care about how you dress and that is OK. Edit: also if you are obviously needy, then are you sure you can’t find thrift stores that will give you stuff for free? The best stores are run by volunteers who just want to help people.
closeparen 5y ago
A lot of serious, famous people live in grand, nice houses in older neighborhoods with hopelessly oversubscribed Comcast. The CEO of my Fortune 500 company presented at a remote all-hands at about 0.25 frames/second. Now at that level, maybe you can spend the $10 million it would take to pull fiber to your house. But we’re not taking about buying some prosumer electronics here, we’re talking years of permitting and digging up the street. For mid-tier famous people the only hope they have of getting better upload bandwidth is moving to houses that already have it. That’s a bit more dramatic than going to a clothing store.
- periheli0n 5y ago
  I find it shocking that bad uplink in private homes is still a problem in the US. In times where a good proportion of public life happens on the web, most of shopping is done online, and media are dominated by streaming, why do people not run rampant against the lack of a decent wired uplink?
  - dubya 5y ago
    Most of the web works fine with a fast link _to_ your home, so that's what Comcast et al have optimized for. I had to upgrade during Covid to get a decent upload rate. Speedtest says I now have 238Mbps down/12Mbps up. For comparison my office has 100Mbps up and down and has never felt slow for downloads.
  - davidandgoliath 5y ago
    It isn't still a problem. Misguided wifi setups certainly are though.
    - walshemj 5y ago
      You should avoid connecting to video conferencing via wifi if at all possible
- ghaff 5y ago
  Yeah. People with a spare room can spend thousands of dollars decking out a studio just so. But a lot of that money is pretty much wasted if they have glitchy Internet and there's not much they can do about other than renting a private office that has good Internet (which is probably an OK option for mid-tier famous people if they live near a city or other area with good network infrastructure).

mssundaram 5y ago

Eloquent summary and analysis, thank you!

brutus1213 5y ago

I was an organizer for a major ACM conference last year, and I really struggled with my home video streaming setup. A lot of equipment was sold out last year. I followed the recommendation of some YouTubers and realized that this is not as simple as it seems. Despite realizing the importance of a live stream setup and investing in it, I'm pretty unhappy with the results. Thankfully we are out of the worst of the pandemic .. but I agree that a good home streaming setup will be important going forward. Edit: one thing I never figured out how to solve was removing glare on my glasses (either monitor glare or from key lights). Best investment was an external microphone and a few items mounted on the wall behind me (which used to be bare).

thinkmassive 5y ago
For the glasses glare I found a few things that help: - Turn down display brightness - Dark mode everywhere possible - Block direct sunlight (blinds/curtains or rotate desk) - Illuminate the rest of your face to reduce the contrast from glasses If you use a terminal for most things, including notes, one thing that helps a lot is to use a semi-transparent black background and position the terminal window over the meeting display.
- ghaff 5y ago
  >Block direct sunlight Yeah, I don't bother day to day but, if I'm recording video, I have a couple different pieces of fabric that I can use to control the light coming in the windows--which also have shades--depending upon how sunny it is outside.
jonpurdy 5y ago
I wonder if using a polarizing filter over your webcam would reduce the glare from your glasses. Polarizing sunglasses very effectively reduce glare on water, as well as car windshields.
- buro9 5y ago
  Yes this works. I use a polarising filter on a DSLR for a web cam and it makes my lenses invisible to the viewer... No reflection whatsoever.
HanShotFirst 5y ago
For glasses glare you can use soft lights (large, non directional lights, like lamps with large shades or harder lights bounced off of a white wall) on each side of your face, much more to the left and right than normal - almost perpendicular to your nose, just slightly in front of your face. It's a nontraditional setup.
Mrnimbus112 5y ago
This cunt thinks the worst is over haha
ska 5y ago
For glasses glare a couple of things: First, a circular polarizing filter can help. Second "key lights" don't have to just be your monitor. You can dark mode the monitor you have in line with camera and leave it at low brightness, then bring in the primary lighting from the side (another monitor, or a cheap/home-made soft box would work - a diffuse desk lamp may serve well, or a strong harsher light bounced off a white wall ). You can't stop light reflecting off your glasses, but you can make sure most of it doesn't bounce into your camera. Not if you go very directional on the light you may need something to fill from the other side so you don't get strong shadows. One source should be ok if you only give enough angle to loose the reflection.

linsomniac 5y ago

Over a year ago now I had commented that it's funny watching the TV networks struggle to figure out what teenagers on TikTok had dialed in: Their streaming setups. I imagined that the broadcasters, when they had to switch to remote, had video and audio engineers you could put together a kit for their stars. But for a while it seemed like so many were "You have a laptop with a camera and mic Good to go!"

fatboy93 5y ago
My FIL does TV debates in India, and his setup is to skyoe/zoom/meet into their station. He's using an iPad mini to run all the apps tbh, and it works fine more or less.

bluefirebrand 5y ago

> in much the same way that it would be hard to take a poorly-dressed person seriously The sooner we can get over this obsession with people dressed "nicely" and instead listen to people who know what they are talking about, the better. Any monkey can wear a jacket and tie. I hate that society automatically elevates well dressed people the way it does. To me it only signals that they have money.

jiofih 5y ago
You may be surprised to realize that you’re the one being superficial here in equating style with money. Dressing well does not require money - what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing. Millions of people dress nicely from Primark/C&A alone, and even fashion students get going on tight budgets sourcing second hand items. Much like keeping your hair looking good, trimming your nose hair and so on, these signals will never be completely ignored unless social norms for personal care change significantly - and that’s not happening without a significant cultural / economic / health shift.
- Mrnimbus112 5y ago
  Hey look another cunt who cares about the wrong things in life.
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  > what it signals is a form of sophistication or good taste in the case of high fashion, or tidyness and well-being for casual clothing. Caring about sophistication or good taste in fashion is a luxury that it takes money to afford. Even just the time investment it requires to be fashionable, to source nice clothes and plan outfits and all of that shit, it's absolutely the domain of people who have money. I don't think you've ever been poor. Poor enough that "second hand" doesn't mean thrift stores, it means "hand-me-downs".
  - robocat 5y ago
    You have moved the goalposts. > I don't think you've ever been poor. You shouldn’t jump to conclusions - there are many people on hn from other countries where having access to a thrift store defines you as relatively wealthy. Either way, if you look like a hobo on your livestream setup, then people are likely to judge you. I wish the world was less judgemental, but you don’t get to tell others how to be, so you have to live with how they act, and sometimes that means playing dress up. Sometimes it is a sign of respect for other people’s opinions - some people really care about how you dress and that is OK. Edit: also if you are obviously needy, then are you sure you can’t find thrift stores that will give you stuff for free? The best stores are run by volunteers who just want to help people.

closeparen 5y ago

A lot of serious, famous people live in grand, nice houses in older neighborhoods with hopelessly oversubscribed Comcast. The CEO of my Fortune 500 company presented at a remote all-hands at about 0.25 frames/second. Now at that level, maybe you can spend the $10 million it would take to pull fiber to your house. But we’re not taking about buying some prosumer electronics here, we’re talking years of permitting and digging up the street. For mid-tier famous people the only hope they have of getting better upload bandwidth is moving to houses that already have it. That’s a bit more dramatic than going to a clothing store.

periheli0n 5y ago
I find it shocking that bad uplink in private homes is still a problem in the US. In times where a good proportion of public life happens on the web, most of shopping is done online, and media are dominated by streaming, why do people not run rampant against the lack of a decent wired uplink?
- dubya 5y ago
  Most of the web works fine with a fast link _to_ your home, so that's what Comcast et al have optimized for. I had to upgrade during Covid to get a decent upload rate. Speedtest says I now have 238Mbps down/12Mbps up. For comparison my office has 100Mbps up and down and has never felt slow for downloads.
- davidandgoliath 5y ago
  It isn't still a problem. Misguided wifi setups certainly are though.
  - walshemj 5y ago
    You should avoid connecting to video conferencing via wifi if at all possible
ghaff 5y ago
Yeah. People with a spare room can spend thousands of dollars decking out a studio just so. But a lot of that money is pretty much wasted if they have glitchy Internet and there's not much they can do about other than renting a private office that has good Internet (which is probably an OK option for mid-tier famous people if they live near a city or other area with good network infrastructure).